


New Understanding

by SecondFromTheRight



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Jon's POV, Reunion Fic, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-10
Updated: 2017-09-10
Packaged: 2018-12-25 22:17:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12045420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondFromTheRight/pseuds/SecondFromTheRight
Summary: He forgot all his responsibilities because the only role he’d ever had that mattered, that was vital to who he was, was being Arya’s brother.





	New Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> I've had many comments in my drabble collection about reunions, and I thought it was time I try something.
> 
> My Arya Mentions collection makes it obvious that I'm a big fan of dialogue, but POVs of ASOIAF characters is something I needed to attempt. So I hope this isn't a disappointment. It has some influence from my drabble She'll Take On The World.

“Arya.” He whispered, feeling the peace the word created, the warmth the thought of her brought and the presence of home, of understanding that having her in his arms embedded.

She felt different than the last time he’d held her. Still skinny, still small, and still so open, giving so much of herself to him, gripping him as tightly as she always had, openly loving him as she always had, never fearing the indecency of her bastard brother – holding him harder in spite of it, daring the world to challenge them. But she was more sure of herself, he could feel it in the how still she was against him. She was stronger, muscle she’d never had before that now equalled each side of their embrace. And as he pulled back from burying his face against the furs at her neck so he could cup her face and look at her – just look at her for the first time in so long – he saw that that hopeful nativity of innocence that she used as a shield as a child, was gone. Instead she stared back him with a brand new understanding. Even apart, they’d somehow grown together. She’d always been the only one to understand him, who made him feel like maybe he wasn’t born to the wrong world, wrong family, wrong time after all, because how could he be if she shared that feeling with him? How could he have been wrong when in a world where he questioned how wanted he was, he’d always found belonging with her. She’d been his home within his home – his real home.

He’d worried they would have drifted, that that kinship would have been lost by the changes he’d been through, the things he’d seen and done. He’d fought mourning that likelihood because he simply could not wish her to have gone through the horrors that new perspective required, but here she was looking at him both like his beloved little sister, eyes wide and fierce, loyal and alight, but also as a solider – a fellow soldier. No matter the familiarity and the block that eased within him at seeing their bond remain, a new knot formed at the truth of what that meant for her. What she must have lived to look at him with that new understanding terrified him.

“Jon.” She mouthed back, a broken sigh like something had crumbled. It made him realise why he had put this from his mind so much, forcing it away. It was too much. To dream for it, to hope to see her again and it not happen – he didn’t have that strength, had never had the strength because she’d been so much of the strength of him herself and he’d lost it when he lost her. It had gotten him through nights at the Wall when he could just think of her, but the more time past, the more he started to believe she may be gone, the weaker he was, instead having to narrow his world to try to find what was right and what he had to do. And he couldn’t afford to wish for it, to wish for this, because looking into her eyes that matched his own, he forgot everything else. The Night King, the Wall, the on-going war down south and the on-coming war from the North. He forgot all his responsibilities because the only role he’d ever had that mattered, that was vital to who he was, was being Arya’s brother.


End file.
